Howzat!
by Christine
Summary: Can Rachel enjoy herself at a cricket match??


Title: Howzat! 

Author: Christine 

Date: 1st January 2000 

Category: Fluff! 

Disclaimer: "I'm Detective Goldstein, this is Detective Holloway and we just wanted to ask you a few questions" "What has Hal's characters been stolen again?" "I'm afraid so" "I don't own and aren't claiming to own anything, don't you feel sorry for me detectives?" 

Author's Notes: I was just sitting wishing I could write fluff like Jule's and Esme and then I had an idea...its not very good and no where near as good as the Queen and Princess's fluff fics, but I just thought I would give it a go and see what everyone thinks so please read it anyway and please tell me what u what you think. 

Because of what I said before its dedicated to Julia and Esme. 

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Howzat! By Christine 

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Rachel sat on the hard plastic seats of the Don Bradman stand inspecting her burger that Jack had so kindly got for her after she had stated she was hungry at least 7 times. Even after all that when she opened the burger just to check, there was an ugly juicy yellow ring. 

"Jack what's this?" 

She looked over at Jack who was wrapped so far up in the Australia verses England one-dayer that he was actually leaning further and further forward on his seat. 

"Jack!" Rachel exclaimed, annoyed by the fact he was ignoring her, well really he just was deafened to the rest of the world by his selective hearing and love of cricket but it seemed as if he was ignoring her. 

"Eh?" Jack said without taking his eyes off the match. 

"Jack there's pineapple on this!" 

"Oh yeah I, ah, I, ordered it," Jack said still not facing Rachel and obviously not concentrating on forming sentences. 

"I hate pineapple, you know I hate pineapple," Rachel said still trying to attain his attention. 

"Uh huh," Jack grunted more than said. 

"Here, take it," Rachel said shoving the piece of pineapple in front of his face. 

Jack moved her hand away; she was obstructing his view with the piece of pineapple. "Rach, just- oh H O W Z A T ?!" Jack exclaimed and literally jumped from his chair when Glenn McGrath bowled yet another Indian out and the excitement rose as the bails fell to the ground. 

He turned to Rachel. "Did you see that?" 

"No I missed it because I was too busy trying to find a suitable place for this," Rachel exclaimed while waving the piece of pineapple in front of Jack's face. 

"You should have just gave it to me," he said casually as he took the pineapple from Rachel and began to eat it in front of her. "You know I love the stuff, you know you really shouldn't have ordered pineapple, everyone knows you don't like it." 

Rachel gave him one of her deadly stares, even more deadly was the fact there wasn't as much as 30cm between them. Far too little space to fight off one of her stares. "You ordered the burgers Jack therefore you ordered the pineapple," she explained to him like he was a little kid, a very naughty little kid though who definitely wouldn't be getting what he wanted after dinner tonight. 

"Huh?...Oh yeah, sorry," Jack replied but when Rachel didn't say anything he forced his eyes away from the oval in front of him and turned to face her. "I'm sorry Rach I just forgot," he looked at her pleadingly. 

Rachel raised her eyebrows slightly and continued to stare at him. 'How dare he try to suck up now' she thought. It wasn't just the pineapple for Christ sake. "I'm just going for a-" 

"Oh, that was out, that was out!" Jack cut her off and was now standing up and shouting unfortunately for Rachel in his Australian Cricket Board t-shirt that looked as though it would probably glow in the dark it was so bright. Rachel turned away from him only to see the exact same image of him on the opposite side of the oval. The camera had picked him and his shouting out and had zoomed right in. Jack was so overwhelmed he didn't even seem to notice but Rachel definitely did. The camera moved slightly to the left and Rachel was presented with an image of herself looking less than happy to be sitting next to this man on the huge screen. She immediately got up and decided it best to go and recover from that experience somewhere out of reach of Jack; at this moment she didn't know what she was capable of. She lifted herself off the plastic seat she now found herself stuck too and cursed it for being a hot day before starting to walk in the opposite direction to Jack. 

Jack turned beside him to where Rachel should have been and then shifted his glance up at her walking away. He looked at the game and then back at Rachel. He hesitatively pulled himself away from the game and ran up behind her. 

"Rachel where are you going? I'm sorry ok," he waited for her forgiveness. 

"Yeah ok you're sorry, I'm going for a walk," Rachel said very unforgiving much to Jack's disappointment. 

He heard the crowd behind him cheering and felt himself being pulled towards the noise, even though it was only in his mind. "Come on Rachel, I'll behave." 

Rachel paused for a moment considering her options and finally decided to give him another chance. She walked very directly back to her uninviting seat and made as though she was enthralled in the game. Jack followed and did the same although he didn't have to pretend. Pretty soon she was bored out of her mind. 

"How did you manage to talk me into this again?" she asked Jack when there was a break in the game to inspect the ball. 

"Ah, if I remember correctly you wanted to prove me wrong" 

"Oh yeah," Rachel thought back to their earlier conversation. She wanted to prove that she could find some enjoyment in a game of cricket even though she hated the sport and was failing miserably already, hell she had dismissed the bet in the first hour of watching. Rachel didn't say anything else about it and she hoped Jack wouldn't either, she hated losing. 

"And I can see you *are* enjoying yourself immensely," Jack said sarcastically as he watched Rachel reach into her bag and bring out some paperwork she had brought along for the ride. 

"I am so I just have a lot of work to catch up on and you know, this seems like the perfect time to catch up on it," she said smiling a fake smile at Jack while wishing he would drop the conversation. 

"Oh yeah and what are we?" 

"We are...detective's?" Rachel said sarcastically getting a few glances from the people around her. 

"The scores, what are we?" Jack continued. 

"Well Jack *we* are not playing-" 

Jack stopped and turned back to the game which had resumed play. He knew he could never win with this woman. Rachel, content that she had redeemed herself nicely and that Jack was once again absorbed by the men standing around chewing chewing gum and spitting on the ground beside them decided to go for that walk she was planning on taking before. She turned to tell Jack but when she saw him rubbing white zinc across his nose and yelling "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi" she decided to leave it. 

As she made her way through the various stands and the rows of green and yellow speckled with blue here and there she became aware of the many people who had taken their eyes of the game to watch her and then turn to their friends as a little smirk would light up their faces. She continued self-consciously walking along the stands where she would continuously get the same reaction. She pushed her hair behind her ears, rubbed her face with her hands, checked the bottom of her shoes, made an attempt to see if she had sat in anything but she couldn't find anything out of place or that wasn't usually there. 

As she made her way past a young boy in a wally hat and the same t-shirt that Jack was wearing, obviously noticing her confusion he tapped her on the arm and pointed to the big screen where Jack's previous antics had been displayed. She stopped and stared at the screen. There spread across the flat, flawless screen was the shot shown of her before with an expression somewhere between boredom, embarrassment and anger. Below the picture read- "You would have enjoyed it much more." She watched in confusion and embarrassment as the shot then folded like vertical blinds and displayed a picture of a very familiar face from the past. Rachel blinked again. There was Frank, a mischievous grin lighting up his face. She glanced down at the writing below his glowing face- it read- "How come you would never come to the cricket with me?" When her brain started to function properly again she fitted the sentences together. "How come you would never come to the cricket with me?" *Turn* "You would have enjoyed it much more." 

A smile spread across her face as she stared at the picture of Frank and realised what this meant, he was back...and he had chosen to come to the cricket before seeing her! 

"You bastard Holloway," she said under her breath but she couldn't make the smile go away, she was enjoying herself at a cricket match, howzat! 

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Finis! Please tell me what u think! 


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